The state of nature analogy in International Relations theory

Abstract

Today, the domestic analogy is a well-established and frequently used term in the discipline of International Relations (IR). What is less established is that often two different analogies are hiding behind this term – an analogy between the domestic and the international realm, on the one hand, and an analogy between a state of nature and the international realm, on the other hand. This article argues that only in the former case, we can speak of domestic analogy. In the latter case, the ‘state of nature’ is mistaken for the ‘domestic’, which, on closer inspection, are converse terms. After a critique of the way in which the domestic analogy has been used in the literature, and in the work of Chiara Bottici in particular, I develop the alternative concept of the state of nature analogy and locate it within each of Martin Wight’s three traditions of international theory. Once we have unraveled the two analogies, the advantages of using the state of nature analogy over the domestic analogy become manifest.